My internet connection is very bad so it would take literally weeks to download the digital version of Skyrim so I think I'm gonna get a physical copy. Now my question is, once I redeem it on steam do I need to have the disk in to play it? Do I get all the benefits of the digital steam version? Thanks so much in advance.

No; yes

Once you install from disc, it downloads all updates and activates it via Steam. Once done, you never need to be connected to the Internet again and no disc is needed to play. It's just there to help provide the files.

Thanks for the fast reply!

Well you technically still need an Internet connection to connect to the Steam servers for authentication. You can set Steam to offline mode and it will not require an Internet connection but the game needs to be fully updated first (at least when Steam is toggled to offline mode).

Updates are... Doable. They're painfully long but I can usually knock out an update in a few hours on a good day.

Also, one more thing: make sure you don't add the free texture pack. That's 3 GB in size and, on your connection, could take forever.

About 3 days to be precise. Perhaps I could mooch of some free wifi on a laptop for things like that.